Resveratrol has been shown to inhibit proliferation and cause apoptosis of MM cells [
18-
20]. Its anti-myeloma efficacy has been linked to its capacity to induce a mitochondrial stress response [
20], suppress constitutive NF-κB and STAT3 signaling pathways [
19], or to modify the expression of apoptotic regulatory proteins [
29]. However, whether resveratrol induces the pro-apoptotic effects of ER stress responses in MM tumor cells remains unclear. Our study demonstrates that resveratrol is sufficient to induce ER stress and its pro-apoptotic effects. Consistent with the findings in resveratrol-induced apoptosis in human colon cancer cells [
30], we found that resveratrol induced CHOP expression, a downstream mediator of the PERK signaling branch of the ER stress response [
2] and pro-apoptotic molecules [
24]. The induction of CHOP has also been shown to mediate cell death associated with bortezomib-induced ER stress in MM [
13]. In addition, we demonstrated that resveratrol activates the IRE1α/XBP1s signaling pathway, the most conserved ER stress response signaling in MM cells. This was shown by the elevated phosphorylation of IRE1α, a prerequisite of IRE1α activation, and consequently
XBP1 mRNA splicing and activation of JNK (). The latter has been implicated in MM apoptosis [
31]. Further the JNK inhibitor SP600125 inhibited resveratrol-induced apoptosis of MM cells [
20]. In addition, resveratrol displayed similar dose-dependent effects on activating Caspase-3 signaling and the pro-apoptotic signaling of ER stress responses (), indicating that the two events are linked. These data demonstrate that resveratrol induces the ER stress response, and that induction of the pro-apoptotic effects of ER stress represents a novel mechanism underlying resveratrol-induced MM cell death.
The IRE1α/JNK/XBP1 signaling plays both pro-survival and pro-apoptotic roles under stress conditions mediated by XBP1s and JNK, respectively [
14,
32]. XBP1s drives mRNA expression of proteins that are involved in protein trafficking, folding and the protein quality control ER-associated degradation pathway [
28]. XBP1s is essential for pathogenesis of MM and the survival and growth of MM cells because MM cells synthesize large amounts of proteins and have great amounts of intrinsic ER stress [
11]. Thus, various strategies have been developed to target XBP1s and its function to treat MM cells. For instance, pharmacological repression of IRE1α endoribonulease activity led to inhibition of
XBP1 mRNA splicing and sensitization of cells to ER stress-induced cell death [
5]. Bortezomib increased the intrinsic ER stress in MM cells by blocking protein degradation and thus inducing the accumulation of a large amount of unfolded and/or misfolded proteins. However, Bortezomib repressed XBP1s function via elevating the protein levels of XBP1u, the unspliced and transcriptionally inactive form of XBP1 which antagonizes the functions of XBP1s [
3]. Intriguingly, our study revealed a distinct mechanism by which resveratrol affects the XBP1s signaling in MM cells. We demonstrated that although resveratrol activated IRE1α activity and consequently enhanced mRNA splicing of
XBP1, it paradoxically exerted a specific inhibitory effect on the transcriptional activity of XBP1s without elevating XBP1u, which consequently led to a defective auto-regulation loop for
XBP1, in which XBP1s transcriptionally regulates mRNA expression of total
XBP1. This notion is supported by the observation that there were reduced total
XBP1 mRNA levels despite the increased XBP1s protein levels in MM cells in response to resveratrol treatment ( and ). Further, it was noticed that resveratrol also repressed mRNA expression of another XBP1s target gene
VEGFA (). Taken together, these results suggest that resveratrol induces ER stress and inhibits the mRNA expression of XBP1s inducible genes, such as
XBP1 and
VEGFA, which favor the survival of MM cells upon ER stress.
We examined the mechanism underlying the effects of resveratrol on the autoregulation loop of
XBP1 mRNA expression and found that resveratrol was a potent inhibitor of the transcriptional activity of XBP1s in a SIRT1-dependent manner. SIRT1 is a well-known downstream molecular target of resveratrol [
22]. In the current study, we found that in MM cells, resveratrol increased the chromatin-bound SIRT1 at the XBP1 binding region in the promoter of
XBP1 gene (). Recently, we found that SIRT1 negatively regulates the transcriptional activity of XBP1s [
23]. Our results suggest that resveratrol inhibits the transcriptional activity of XBP1s via promoting the enrichment of SIRT1 on the promoter of XBP1s downstream target genes, thus revealing an important role of SIRT1 in mediating resveratrol’s inhibitory effect on XBP1s transcriptional activity. Given the essential role of XBP1s in MM cells, this mechanism may explain a recent finding that the SIRT1 activator, SIRT1720, induced cytotoxicity in human MM cells [
33]. Although many studies examined if SIRT1 is a prognosis indicator in a wide range of solid tumor cancers, little is known about the role of SIRT1 in MM. Further studies to test whether inhibition of SIRT1 contributes to the high transcriptional activity of XBP1s in MM cells are warranted. Another important question that requires future studies is how resveratrol enhances recruitment of SIRT1 to the promoter of
XBP1 gene. It has been shown that resveratrol can activate SIRT1 both directly and indirectly [
22]. In addition, we recently reported that SIRT1 binds and posttranslationally modifies XBP1s [
23]. Therefore, resveratrol can likely regulate either SIRT1 and/or XBP1s to modulate their binding affinities for each other and consequently increase SIRT1 recruitment to the
XBP1 promoter via XBP1s protein, which directly binds the
XBP1 promoter. To test the postulation, future studies are required to identify the putative sites of XBP1s, which resveratrol and/or SIRT1 could act upon, and to determine the roles of the XBP1s WT and mutant(s) proteins that are either resistant or prone to the actions of resveratrol and/or SIRT1 in mediating the effects of resveratol on SIRT1 recruitment to the
XBP1 promoter.
In summary, this study reveals a novel mechanism by which resveratrol induces cell death in MM cells. Resveratrol activates ER stress signaling and its pro-apoptotic effects while inhibiting transcriptional function of XBP1s and the pro-survival signaling of the ER stress signaling (). These results suggest that resveratrol might be an excellent pharmaceutical agent for treating MM by subjecting MM cells to double-jeopardy and tilt the survival/apoptosis balance of the ER stress response towards cell death. It is also plausible that resveratrol may function in the same manner in other cancers in which the tumor growth relies on a highly expressed IRE1α/XBP1 branch of the ER stress response.